Mark Twain, a Biography — Volume II, Part 1: 1886-1900 eBook

One by one those who sat within easy reach of the
various exits melted away, until no one remained but
Mark Twain. Perhaps he saw the earnestness of
the young man, and sympathized with it. He may
have remembered a time when he would have been grateful
for one such attentive auditor. At all events,
he sat perfectly still, never taking his eyes from
the reader, never showing the least inclination toward
discomfort or impatience, but listening, as with rapt
attention, to the very last line. Douglas Taylor,
one of the faithful Saturday-night members, said to
him later:

“Mark, how did you manage to sit through that
dreary, interminable poem?”

“Well,” he said, “that young man
thought he had a divine message to deliver, and I
thought he was entitled to at least one auditor, so
I stayed with him.”

We may believe that for that one auditor the young
author was willing to sacrifice all the others.

One might continue these anecdotes for as long as
the young man’s poem lasted, and perhaps hold
as large an audience. But anecdotes are not all
of history. These are set down because they reflect
a phase of the man and an aspect of his life at this
period. For at the most we can only present an
angle here and there, and tell a little of the story,
letting each reader from his fancy construct the rest.

CVI

HIS FIRST STAGE APPEARANCE

Once that winter the Monday Evening Club met at Mark
Twain’s home, and instead of the usual essay
he read them a story: “The Facts Concerning
the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut.”
It was the story of a man’s warfare with a personified
conscience—­a, sort of “William Wilson”
idea, though less weird, less somber, and with more
actuality, more verisimilitude. It was, in fact,
autobiographical, a setting-down of the author’s
daily self-chidings. The climax, where conscience
is slain, is a startling picture which appeals to
most of humanity. So vivid is it all, that it
is difficult in places not to believe in the reality
of the tale, though the allegory is always present.

The club was deeply impressed by the little fictional
sermon. One of its ministerial members offered
his pulpit for the next Sunday if Mark Twain would
deliver it to his congregation. Howells welcomed
it for the Atlantic, and published it in June.
It was immensely successful at the time, though for
some reason it seems to be little known or remembered
to-day. Now and then a reader mentions it, always
with enthusiasm. Howells referred to it repeatedly
in his letters, and finally persuaded Clemens to let
Osgood bring it out, with “A True Story,”
in dainty, booklet form. If the reader does not
already know the tale, it will pay him to look it
up and read it, and then to read it again.

Meantime Tom Sawyer remained unpublished.

“Get Bliss to hurry it up!” wrote Howells.
“That boy is going to make a prodigious hit.”